Should a Christian Work for Government?

Lately I’ve been reading a lot of Hauerwas. Earlier I read a lot of Yoder and still do pick him up occasionally. Neither one says Christians shouldn’t work for government, but things they do say about Christianity and government incline that way.

Of course there are government jobs where no conceivable conflict with Christian faith and morals would arise—the drivers license bureau, etc. At least one would be hard pressed to think of such conflicts. (Of course, conflicts could arise if a supervisor asked you to do something unethical, but that can happen in any job. Here I’m wondering about conflicts that automatically come with the job or probably will.)

What really got me wondering about this was last Sunday’s (May 13) episode of “60 Minutes.” They interviewed a former top US spy who had a lot of interesting things to say about strategies for information gathering. One that caught my ear was providing pornography to foreign diplomats and agents. He said he never met a diplomat of a certain country that didn’t love pornography and that he and other US agents provided pornography to them in exchange for information.

I had never thought about that before. I knew that as a US secret agent you might have to kill people, but provide them with pornography? Now that’s another question. Can a Christian do that with a clear conscience—for whatever payoff? Does any end justify such an immoral means?

As I watched that I wondered how many Christians watching the show shuddered at that method of obtaining secret information about our enemy countries. I suspected that many who wouldn’t hesitate to defend torture or even assassination did shudder at that and wondered to themselves whether they could do that with a clear Christian conscience.

Where exactly are the limits? I know that there are evangelical Christians working in intelligence gathering for the US government. What will they absolutely refuse to do—no matter what the pay off might be in terms of obtaining important information that might make us more secure as a nation?

Let’s consider torture. I have heard reasonable people defend torture as a last resort. (You can call waterboarding whatever you want to; to me it’s torture.) Okay, let’s agree to disagree about that. (I think torture is always wrong and should never be condoned by policy.) What about torturing a suspected terrorist’s wife and children—if torturing him doesn’t work?

Absurd, you say? Well, it has happened in history. I have read accounts of it being done by Nazis, so it isn’t literally absurd.

No, you say? Never? Why not? What justifies drawing an absolute line between torturing a suspected terrorist to extract information and torturing his wife and children if it is likely to work? (Remember, he’s only a suspected terrorist, so saying torturing him is justified whereas torturing his wife and children is not because he’s guilty and they’re innocent won’t work.)

I think some Anabaptists (and perhaps others) prefer not to work for any government agency or branch because it is impossible to discern the line between what is participation in unchristian, immoral acts and what is not. And there is always the danger of being asked to participate, however indirectly, in violence or immorality such as providing pornography to someone.

I’m not convinced that Christians should never work for government, but I wonder if average, run-of-the-mill evangelical Christians put much thought into what branches of government they would work for and why (or why not).

Again, I suspect many conservative evangelical (and other) Christians would balk at supplying graphic pornography to enemy agents but not balk at participating in torture or assassination or capital punishment (assuming they are constitutionally able to stomach such things).

I don’t agree with Hauerwas or Yoder about everything, but I think they do (did) the church a great service by at least raising questions about Christian virtues and government practices.

In Hannah’s Child (his autobiography) Hauerwas writes about the backlash he felt from theological friends when he criticized America’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. One well known theologian with whom he was close walked out on a talk he was giving and later wrote to ask him if he felt no “natural loyalties”—meaning to country, I take it.

I guess I would ask that theologian if he would provide pornography to an enemy agent if it would result in the likelihood of obtaining information that would help make our country more secure. If his answer was “yes,” I would ask if he would provide LSD or other mind-altering drugs. If the answer was “yes,” I would ask what he WOULDN’T do to obtain such information. If there was ANYTHING he wouldn’t do, I could ask him if he felt no natural loyalties.

Hauerwas believes it is always wrong for Christians to kill fellow Christians. Whether he is a strict pacifist is somewhat difficult to discern. I thought so, but then I read an article by him that muddied the waters a bit. He seemed to back off absolute pacifism into a kind of “war is always evil even when it’s a necessary evil” position. But one thing is clear—he wants Christians to be in the forefront of abolishing war (and capital punishment, etc.).

Should natural loyalties over ride Christian brotherhood? C. S. Lewis thought so. What did Christians of the first three centuries think? For the most part they did not participate in war or serve in the military.

Can anyone imagine the Apostle Paul, just to choose one first century Christian, providing pornography to anyone for any reason? Participating in torturing someone for any reason? Taking up arms to kill someone for any reason? I can’t. (I’m leaving Jesus out of the equation here just because I don’t want to play “the Jesus card.” It’s too easy to say “He’s the exception” or something like that.)

So why am I even posting about this? I wonder if, in our American evangelical Christian churches, we have given enough thought to what Christians should and should not do or participate in, in terms of sinful behavior, for the greater good of our country? At times it seems to me that we simply assume that we should do whatever our country asks us to do—especially if we are in the government’s service—without question.

Hauerwas has been vilified even for suggesting otherwise. Perhaps at times he expresses his own ideas in rather extreme ways, but at least he forces us to stop and think about the issues.

Recently I blogged here about Social Darwinism. My main point was that Social Darwinism is incompatible with Christianity. Somehow that launched some readers into a series of assumptions and comments based on them. They assumed that I was attacking capitalism. That’s instructive to me. Do some people interpret any criticism of Social Darwinism as criticism of capitalism? I certainly hope not, but so it seems.

True, I’m not a fan of unregulated, unrestrained capitalism. I don’t call myself a socialist because of the connotations of that term. But I am an advocate of a mixed economy.

HOWEVER (yes, now I’m shouting) I don’t understand how some otherwise quite reasonable people leaped to the conclusion that my post was about capitalism. I didn’t even comment on capitalism per se. I was criticizing a Christian editor for recommending Darwinian economics. SURELY there can be justifications for capitalism that don’t entangle with Social Darwinism. (I call it “Social Darwinism” because the editor clearly was not referring to biological Darwinism.)

Does anyone here want to defend Social Darwinism as compatible with Christianity? Anticipating the objection that government is totally separate from Christianity, let me ask it this way, then. Does anyone want to defend a Christian recommending Social Darwinism as the basis for public policy?

That was my other point in the post–to suggest that too many Christians bifurcate between their Christianity and other areas of their lives including what they believe about public policy. It’s one thing to defend capitalism, it’s something else to recommend it because of “Darwinism” (which in this context can only mean Social Darwinism).

(The following post is by Brandon Morgan. It does not necessarily express the views held by this blogger. (Of course, I wouldn’t post it here if I didn’t think it raised some very important questions.) And it does not imply endorsement of any candidate or party.)

A Republican candidate being asked to give the commencement address at Liberty University is no surprise, especially given that the university is the ‘altar’ school where the marriage between conservative evangelicalism and neo-conservative American politics occurred and is continually bolstered. No one is shocked. But this time is different since the Republican candidate for the presidency is a Mormon.

As a young Christian, I attended a very conservative independent Baptist school and was taught often that Mormonism was a heretical perversion of the Christian faith and should be fought against with rigorous biblical apologetics. The main issue in that context was the manner in which Mormon’s added authorized texts to the biblical canon as a strategy to justify their theological beliefs. The theological differences regarding Christology and the Trinity were not mentioned at all, as they often are today in setting off Mormonism as a deviation from creedal Christianity. It was simply that they read the Bible “wrong” and “added” other texts to the canon, which, among other things, positioned the belief system for being named a Christian heresy. This judgment should be no surprise given that all conservative evangelicals are strong biblicists and solidify their theological positions on strict literal interpretations of Scripture, which in this particular case, finds Revelation 22.18-19 rather helpful. It condemns those who would add to or take away from the Bible and reneges on their share in the “tree of life and the holy city” (read salvation) who would attempt such a pursuit.  I cannot count how many times this verse was used in my conservative Christian upbringing to ward off ‘cult-like’ additions to the biblical canon like those claimed to be found in Mormonism.

I retell this story, not as an entrance into the ongoing debate about the theological differences between Christianity and Mormonism, but in order to isolate just one biblical apologetic strategy used in conservative evangelicalism to distinguish Mormonism from Christianity. I do not agree with the argumentative strategy, but simply describe it as a test case in how biblical literalism furnished the tactics required for conservative Christians to distinguish themselves from Mormons who, apart from obvious theological differences, actually took up, and continue to take up, similar social and political causes related to the institution of the family and, therefore, Republican party interests.

I find this biblical-apologetic strategy of interest because it serves to insinuate the ways in which conservative Christians actually recognized the need to ‘set apart’ Mormons as ‘deviant’ simply because they often looked alike within the social-political sphere. In short, the theological differences between conservative evangelical biblicists and Mormons at one time made all the difference, and often still does, in whether or not to accept Mormons as a part of the Christian faith. The similarities in social and political issues were never mentioned in my ‘education’ in the ‘cult-countering’ apologetic strategies, though they were prevalent. They never needed to be mentioned because every political candidate that ran on the Republican ticket (the only correct Christian choice, I was then taught) had always been a Christian during my life and often felt the need to pander for conservative evangelical votes as a way of recognizing the intricate relationship between conservative Christianity and neo-conservative politics. None of this has changed since my grade school years except that now the Republican candidate pandering for conservative evangelical votes is ironically a Mormon, a belief system always blasted as a ‘cult’ among the very voting block seemingly needed the most. Such ‘cult’ language was even used by FBC Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress early this primary season in the Republican debate circuit as a strategy to again differentiate between the Christian, Texas Governor Rick Perry, and the Mormon, Mitt Romney.  It was Jeffress’ claim that he would vote for Romney, despite his Mormonism because he believed that his principles were true while the principles of the Christian Obama was false, that sparked my interest in the present phenomenon of re-evaluating the relationship between conservative Christians and the supposed ‘religious’ underpinnings of voting for Republicans. Romney’s candidacy and his address at Liberty University further this re-evaluation.

What seems to be occurring now in conservative evangelical circles is a process of discerning shared principles that both conservative Christians and Mormons hold within the political and social sphere. No one is surprised by these similarities, which rest on typical appeals to ‘family values.’ But the strange fact is that no one seems to discern the divergent theological claims that would naturally lead to ‘family values’ talk. In fact, most theological divergences between Christians and Mormons are avoided altogether in order to properly discern similar social concerns, which always find their nexus in traditional Republican claims about abortion, homosexuality, the free-market, and foreign policy. The ‘similarities’ are found within the political sphere, more specifically the Republican sphere, so as to alleviate the obvious theological differences that continually separate conservative Christians and Mormons from each other. Romney’s appeal to the ‘religious’ claims about marriage between males and females, for instance, is a way to persuade conservative voters, like those from Liberty U, to see him as an ally. Likewise, his claims in his commencement address about America’s ‘religious’ founding also serves to isolate the similar ‘mythological’ view that many conservative Christians and Mormons have about the foundational ‘Christianness’ of America.

Many more examples of this strategy of discerning the social-political similarities between Mormons and Christians could be shown. But my point here is to suggest a somewhat radical alteration that has occurred in typical ‘religously’ minded voting within conservative Christian circles. I suggested earlier that biblical-apologetic strategies of differentiation were rampant within my conservative Christian grade school upbringing because the social and political similarities between Christians and Mormons could often be deceptive. The ‘truth’ was in the biblical and doctrinal differences, which needed to be articulated to show that Mormonism was a ‘heresy’ or ‘cultic deviant’ belief system. But now that a Mormon has won the Republican candidacy, the strategies are reversed. The theological and biblical differences are pushed to the side in order to isolate the social-political similarities. That is how a Mormon like Romney can give the commencement speech at Liberty. There simply are no theological reasons why such an invitation would ever be allowed at Liberty. Its occurrence seems to be reliance upon the common presupposition that conservative Christians vote Republican for seemingly ‘religious’ reasons and Romney happens to be a ‘religious’ Republican who shares in social-political values that conservative-Christians value. Nothing about Christian beliefs and Mormon beliefs are referred to other than a blanket appeal to God’s (whose God?) ‘election’ of America as the new Israel—a true Christian heresy in its own right.

My question about all this is: given this state of affairs, can it be claimed with integrity that conservative Christians’ criteria for voting in a consistently conservative way subsist in any ‘theological’ or specifically ‘Christian’ criteria. In short, will not conservative Christians have to give up the claim that they vote with Christian ideals in mind when, in fact, they choose to vote for a Mormon, a group often deemed ‘cult-like,’ over Obama who is a Christian (though perhaps not a conservative one)? Since it is now impossible to claim that a Republican’s political viewpoints reside in his uniquely ‘Christian’ sensibilities, what is revealed is the possibility, perhaps always waiting to be shown, that conservative Christians vote according to neo-conservative political criteria and not uniquely Christian ones. More specifically, what is at stake, and perhaps has always been at stake, is a political ideology and not actually getting a “Christian” into office. Yet the strategy here, as in the past, is to make the Republican political ideology into Christian principles—to amalgamate both into a single religio-political ideology. This strategy, however, must now include Mormonism.

The irony about the Romney candidacy and his Liberty commencement invitation, not to mention his strategies to show the political-social similarities between himself and his needed evangelical votes, is that perhaps many conservative Christians will have to include Romney as a ‘Christian’ in principle, though perhaps not in practice, while excluding Obama as a Christian in principle, despite his claimed commitment in practice. The fact seems to be that Romney, and maybe Mormonism in general, will have to made into a “Christian” through being inducted into the religio-political ideology just mentioned in order to justify voting for him. What, of course, seems to be lost here, and perhaps was always an illusion, is any actual Christian theological claim as an evaluative criteria for political involvement. This is possibly fortunate because it may show that people do not, and maybe have never, actually voted according to their theological belief at all, despite the claims to be doing so. Such beliefs are cast aside for the sake of common conservative principles that will at least defeat the Democrats, if nothing else. Nevertheless, these could be unfortunate realities, if true, because it again alleviates important Christian beliefs, like that oneness of God, the Incarnation of God and God’s Trinitarian life to do any social-political work. It is simply assumed that such particularity serves absolutely no evaluative means to discern what being a Christian citizen, over against the citizenries of the world, could mean. Christianity as a social reality is shown to have never actually been what was at stake in Christian political involvement. What is at stake now is the establishment of common principles to alleviate the lingering separateness between Christianity and Mormonism in order to solidify the needed justification for conservative Christian votes. No doubt our Enlightenment-schooled founding fathers would be proud, though not for the reasons some would assume.

I don’t have a definite answer to that although I tend to think Social Darwinism is incompatible with biblical Christianity.

My point here, however, is simply that many American Christians seem to be able to embrace Social Darwinism while rejecting (often vehemently) biological Darwinism.

I live in a social context strongly influenced by Christian fundamentalism. It’s very common to see anti-evolution bumper stickers. Books and seminars against evolution abound. Not far from where I sit there is a “Creationism Museum.” Letters to the editor often express outrage at evolution taught in public schools.

And yet, Social Darwinism seems to be the default philosophy of economics in this social context. “Survival of the fittest” is rejected as a biological explanation of the creation and survival of species, but it is embraced as the basis for proper economics.

A good example of this contrast and even contradiction appears in today’s local newspaper–owned and operated by a Christian family who, when they bought the paper, immediately put “In God We Trust” immediately beneath the paper’s name on page one. Numerous letters to the editor applauded that.

Today’s edition contains an unsigned editorial (which always reflect the editorial board’s opinion) defending “free-market” economics: “Americans should allow Darwinian, free-market dynamics to continue in the ebb and flow that so characterize this [capitalist] system.” (Waco Tribune-Herald, May 16, 2012, 6A)

I have written a letter to the editor simply asking how this affirmation of social Darwinism is consistent with “In God We Trust.”

What I really wonder is how so many even educated Christians fail to see the contradiction inherent in belief in the Christian God, the God of Jesus Christ, together with belief in Social Darwinism. Surely “In God We Trust” (in this newspaper) does not mean “In the God of Deism” we trust. Or at least that is not what most readers who applauded the motto’s inclusion thought it meant.

I am willing to bet that I am only one of a tiny number of readers who will notice this contradiction. I am willing to bet that IF the newspaper published an editorial including an affirmation of biological Darwinism there would be a huge outcry and many subscribers would drop their subscriptions. I doubt there will be even a ripple of dissent in this case.

Why do I say “contradiction?” I assume that should be obvious to any reflective Christian (or person!). The God of Jesus Christ does not endorse survival of the fittest; he endorses care for the poor, the widows and the orphans.

Now, I can just hear someone screaming “separation of church and state!” I am not recommending that Christians enforce Christian economics (whatever that would be); I am simply criticizing Christian endorsement of Social Darwinism as state policy.

This seems to me to reveal a failure of integrative Christian thinking. I have taught now in three Christian universities in which there has been controversy over “integration of faith and learning.” I can see why–when some Christians want to follow a “two truths” approach to the world of knowledge. This is, however, a failure of discipleship and a betrayal of the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all aspects of reality and truth.

I suppose an argument could be made that a Darwinian approach to economics is pragmatically best in that, overall and in general, it works better than any alternative approach. But that seems like an impossible argument for a Christian to make if it is intended as a defense of survival of the fittest.

Even Adam Smith, the quintessential philosopher of capitalism, argued that capitalism can only work if there is an “invisible hand” (clearly a covert reference to God and/or government) to regulate it. Without that, extremes of wealth and poverty will inevitably develop in a totally unregulated free market economy. It as only AFTER Smith and Darwin that some economists applied survival of the fittest (not Darwin’s term but a good description of natural selection nonetheless) to economic life and argued against government regulation of business on that ground.

IF a Christian is going to embrace and endorse free-market capitalism, he or she should AT LEAST explain how “the least of these” are going to be cared for in that system. Reference to “Darwinian, free-market dynamics” seems to me to imply no care for the least, the unfit, the weak and powerless.

This whole incident simply supports my argument that Christian churches have largely failed to inculcate any serious understanding of Christian truth in their members. We have largely adopted the Kantian distinction between “facts” and “values” and cordoned off Christianity from things like economics.

Integration of faith and learning does not mean there is one “Christian economics.” It means there are some economic theories that are absolutely contrary to a Christian world view. The vast majority of American Christians think that about socialism and communism, but not about Social Darwinism. That is a failure of Christian teaching.

A New Calvinist Book on Justification Perplexes

I have been asked to review Justification: A Guide for the Perplexed by Reformed theologian Alan J. Spence (T&TClark, 2012). Spence is a United Reformed Church pastor in the U.K.

I was asked to review it for The Evangelical Quarterly whose editor is I. Howard Marshall. I like the EQ partly because it has over the years published many excellent articles friendly to Arminianism.

I won’t repeat all my points about Spence’s book here. You’ll have to wait and read my complete review which I just submitted to the book review editor yesterday. I don’t know when it will be published.

However, I do want to mention some problematic points that I see in the book. I invite others who have read it, even Spence himself, should he see this review or the EQ one to respond.

As this is a blog devoted somewhat (if not primarily) to expounding and defending evangelical Arminianism, I will focus here primarily on issues of concern to Arminians raised in Spence’s book.

First, however, let me just say that I found much good in Justification. Unlike many other treatments of the subject by Protestants (especially Lutheran and Reformed theologians), it lacks the expected polemics against Catholic theology. Spence rightly distinguishes between, for example, what Thomas Aquinas actually taught about justification and what Trent taught. According to him (and I agree), Aquinas’s real doctrine of justification is much closer to Luther’s than most people recognize.

Spence is sympathetic to Augustine’s and Aquinas’s accounts of justification even though, in the end, he finds them inadequate. He clearly favor’s Calvin’s view of justification as synonymous with Union with Christ, but his main point throughout the book is that the entire Western tradition, up until Schleiermacher and N. T. Wright, was focused on justification as pardon.

Spence’s foil throughout the book is not Catholic theology but Wright’s “new perspective” on justification especially as expressed in What Paul Really Said (1997). The entire book appears to be a polemic against Wright’s idea of justification even though that is only discussed in the penultimate chapter.

Overall and in general, I agree with Spence that justification is about divine judgment and pardon. I’m not as confident as he seems to be that Wright would disagree. Especially in Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (2009) Wright seems to include that dimension within his overall emphasis on ecclesiology as the setting for properly understanding justification. My final “take” on the matter is that Spence’s account of Wright’s concept of justification is wrong insofar as it fails to take into account Wright’s clarifications in Justification. As I have written here before, it seems to me that Wright’s main point is not to deny the connection between justification and salvation (or even forensic righteousness by faith) but to rediscover the proper setting for that doctrine which is membership in the people of God.

I am equally troubled by Spence’s treatment of Barth, but I’ll leave that for later and perhaps even for the review when it is published in EQ.

Here I wish to raise a question I only touch on in my review for EQ. It has to do with Calvinism and belief in heavenly rewards for faithful service.

When I was growing up in evangelical Christianity much emphasis was placed on future rewards given by God in heaven for faithful obedience to Jesus Christ in Christian living. This was simply assumed; it rarely had to be defended because there are so many Scripture passages that refer to them. This promise and hope was used to encourage us to strive for personal holiness and self-sacrificial service.

I remember my surprise when I discovered that Calvin also taught this. One locus is Institutes III:XVIII “Works Righteousness Is Wrongly Inferred from Reward.” Even in the thoroughly Arminian evangelicalism I grew up in this was emphasized—that when we receive our rewards in heaven we will joyfully cast them at Jesus’ feet out of gratitude for his sacrifice on the cross. (And thus, the name of the Christian band “Casting Crowns.) But we sang hymns about such rewards as reminders that there will be rewards in heaven for obedience and sacrificial service. (For example, “Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?”)

I often wonder why this doctrine of heavenly rewards has dropped away so entirely from most evangelical churches? I haven’t heard a sermon on them or even an illusion to them in a sermon in many years. Nor have I read them mentioned in any book of evangelical theology in a long time.

That’s why my attention was drawn to one particular passage in Spence’s book on page 151. Spence rightly emphasizes that even the justified will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account of their lives and will receive some kind of evaluation from the Savior for works done (or not done) in the body:

“At the end, each one of us will be required to give a full account of our lives before the risen Christ, the plenipotentiary of God. He will graciously reward every loving act that he has accomplished among the faithful through his Spirit and grant to them the gift of eternal life.” (151, italic added for emphasis)

This is completely consistent with Calvin’s explanation of heavenly rewards in the chapter of Institutes mentioned above. Calvin and Spence both say that our heavenly rewards, though very real, are not grounds for boasting because they will be based on what God has done in us, not on our own achievements.

But, to get to my main point, this seems highly problematic to me. What is the purpose of the promise of rewards (and implied threat of no rewards!) if they are given out based solely on what God himself, through his Spirit, has accomplished among the faithful? That is, if you believe that every good work you accomplish is solely God’s accomplishment in you and not at all your own achievement, even by means of free acceptance of the Spirit’s work in you, then what is the point of reward? Is God rewarding himself? But, then, why are there differences of rewards—some greater and some lesser? Would God accomplish by himself, monergistically, anything less than perfection?

In other words, as difficult as it is for me to conceive, I can at least imagine that God constitutes very person’s life by divine decree so that whatever they accomplish or do not accomplish is God’s will. What I cannot even imagine, however, is a reasonable and good God meting out rewards in varying degrees of approval based on what people achieved or did not achieve (in terms of obedience and service) when whatever they achieved or did not achieve was wholly, entirely and solely accomplished by God in and through them.

The only way to make any sense of this is to say that 1) any good achieved and accomplished by a person is due entirely to God’s gracious enablement (so that nobody can boast), but 2) people are responsible freely to allow God to do his work in and through them.

On the one hand, Calvinists rightly wish to avoid any possibility of boasting. On the other hand, Arminians rightly wish to preserve the meaningfulness of the judgment seat of  Christ and of rewards for obedience and service. What we MUST agree about is that such rewards will not be grounds for boasting. Arminians can affirm that together with Calvinists because, at the moment of receiving the reward, whether great or small, the person will know that he or she would have been unable to do anything apart from God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s indwelling power.

But we must also agree that the rewards will be real and meaningful rewards for freely deciding to allow the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit to work in believers’ lives.

My fear is that Spence, and Calvin before him, rob rewards of any meaning and imply that God is actually rewarding himself and not believers. If that is the case, why mention rewards at all? Why preach or teach heavenly rewards as motivation for obedience and service as the New Testament clearly does?

Ah, yes…the Calvinist will say “foreordained means to a foreordained end.” Back to that. But this seems to take to an extreme a right emphasis on God’s sovereignty and glory. The upshot of it all, then, is that whatever a believer is or is not accomplishing is out of his or her control. And that at the judgment seat of Christ all God will be doing is rewarding himself. Now, this might make sense WERE IT NOT FOR THE DEGREES OF REWARDS ISSUE. Clearly there will be degrees of rewards. How is God glorified in awarding to himself a lesser reward than is possible?

My point is that the Calvinist doctrine of rewards involves a conundrum. It actually makes no sense at all. Which is perhaps WHY preaching and teaching about heavenly rewards has virtually ceased. They only make sense within a synergistic view of sanctification.

In the past, and perhaps to some extent still today, SOME Reformed preachers have taught that justification and regeneration are monergistic while sanctification is not. That doesn’t seem to fit with a consistently Calvinist understanding of God’s sovereignty, however, and as Calvinism has become increasingly consistent under the influence of people like Sproul and Piper (and yet, in my opinion, still very inconsistent) any element of synergism, even in sanctification, is slipping away (if not totally condemned).

It seems to me that heavenly rewards is an inescapable biblical truth. Calvin believed that. Obviously Spence believes it. Who can even deny it? And yet it makes no sense within a strictly, consistently monergistic soteriology (in which even sanctification is interpreted as solely God’s work to the exclusion of any free human contribution in which “free” is understood as power of contrary choice).